Good Deal

Back to a serious post… if anything that goes on here can be considered serious.   We go from OMGWTF? to HAHA-AWESOME! in less time than it takes to butter a piece of toast.

The kids are starting to get a lot of our sense of humor (finally) and we haven’t even started indoctrinating them with Monty Python and Mel Brooks movies.  They have seen Down Periscope multiple times, so that helps.  It’s pretty awesome to see them crack cynical, sarcastic filled jokes and it’s even better to see them understanding and using puns.  LJ is a LOT like me – he says “puns work because of a misused homophone.”  Absolutely child.  Absolutely.

Me and LJ – we have an odd sort of relationship.  It’s been hard for me from the beginning with him.  There was a time where we almost refused placement with him – it was that bad.  See, I’m an alpha female.  I have been since the moment I was born and everyone in my family will tell you that.  LJ, when he first came to us, was under the impression that a woman’s job was to cook and take care of the younger babies.  This woman who will never exist was supposed to see a 7 year old boy as having more status in the household than her.  (I know I’ve written before about how the household is like a dog pack.)  Well… as you can tell, this attitude didn’t work.

So, over the 2 years we’ve known him and he’s come to live with  us and become our son, we’ve been working on this.  At times I’m overbearing and at times, he is.  For the most part, he’s figured out that he doesn’t get to tell A&E what to do and I try and give him responsibility over himself.  (I do get to overrule stupid things like wearing shorts to school when it’s 50 degrees outside.)

We meet at loving books.  He loves to read and so do I.  We’d rather read in our bed than talk to anyone.  The problem is that he’s not real sure where the lines between fiction and reality are.  He told some teachers at the school earlier this week that a dragon had bitten him on the neck.  Of course, no one believed him, but the counselor called home to tell me what was going on.  He’s had some pretty big stuff come up in the past few weeks so she knew this may be something we need to discuss.

He and I sat in the car and talked while in the carpool lane to pick up his sister.  We talked and talked and talked.  He didn’t understand that the words he says to people cause reactions – no matter what you say, you’re going to get a reaction.  We talked about how if people knew he just made stuff up all the time that no one would listen to him if something was actually wrong.  We talked about believable stories – dragon bit you?  Obviously not true.  (though, it’s probably better to make up a story that can’t possibly be true than say something equally untrue but believable.)

We talked about appropriate things to share with people (conditional boundaries) and what would happen if those boundaries weren’t respected.  We talked about kids in the foster care system (when we were picking up our AA check at DFCS, he saw some classmates in the waiting room) and the different things that could cause a child to need care.

We spent a lot of time talking about severity and differences – not all kids go through the same thing he did.  For some kids, they had an easier time of it.  For some, they had a time that was much worse than his.  We talked about how everyone, everywhere has something in their past that hurts and how we deal with it determines the kind of person we are.

After all that – we made a deal.

Until November 15th, he is not allowed to either make up fantasy stories or read fiction novels.  He still has to read every night – but he gets true stories.   He’s involved in a biography of Cal Ripken Jr. right now.  I’ll probably go to Goodwill today or tomorrow to pick up more kiddo friendly non-fiction books.  If not that, then we’ll visit the local library.

Things have been moderately better since then.  He’s been meeting my eye and making jokes with me.  He’s been helpful and respectful to the little bits.  Last night, we even put everyone to bed with the sound of laughter even though it was an emotionally difficult day for everyone.  He woke up this morning and told me – amazed – “I didn’t have any nightmares last night, Mommy!”  Awesome.  Pure awesome.

This morning we talked about how to say “its not your business” to people who made them uncomfortable with questions.  We talked about whose business it is – the family’s and the doctors.

After going through foster care and adoption, this is something all of us need to rebuild.  We all need to work on appropriate levels of privacy for ourselves and each other.  We’ve all just gone through so many years of having to report every little thing by phone and in writing.  There were always people in and out of our house – I couldn’t let the laundry go or not load the dishwasher because at ANY moment, someone could pull up and get to judge our worthiness.  This is partly why I’m so open on the internet – it would be hard to rape our privacy and background any more than what it took to become a foster/adopt parent.

Now, we’re having to work on telling people it’s not their business.  Truth is, most people aren’t looking to help – they’re looking for gossip.  Shaun and I are also having to relearn to trust our own judgment.  We’re both grown but we’re too used to having every move picked apart.   That causes stress and anxiety for all of us – we can’t just relax and have normal everyday fights.  Everything is a possible catastrophe.  Everything is caused by this event or that event, and everyone has a different opinion of what caused what.

I mean, I just want my child to feel free enough to scream “I hate you – you’re the meanest mom EVER.”  Right now, we’re still all worried about what we’re saying and trying to use proper communication skills.  In foster care, if they said “I hate her – she’s so mean” to a case worker it wouldn’t be about whether I confiscated the Nintendo DS – it would be “are you feeding them properly?  Whats your discipline policy?  We need to have a face to face meeting about this placement.  I need to talk to my supervisor.”   Basically, if you get mad and immature, your whole life could be turned upside down  (and immature is probably 30% of my personality.)

I want to be able to say “I don’t even want to see you right now” without it meaning “she may not love me enough to keep me.”  No, I just need some time not seeing YOU.  I’ll get to where I want to see YOU again but first I need 5 minutes to look at something else.  Every word that I say has to be examined from how they’ll receive it and how it will sound if they repeat it or how it will sound when I tell the therapist about it (because I can’t lie worth a shit and they can tell when something is going on.)  Then the kids see that I’m uncertain and they start thinking that maybe I don’t know what I’m doing and maybe they don’t have to listen to me.   Or something.

For now, it’s just repeating “I’m your mom.  I was your mom yesterday and I’ll be your mom tomorrow.  I’ll be your mom next year and the year after that.  I’ll be your mom when you get old and have babies.  I’ll be your mom no matter what.”   If we say it enough, maybe we’ll all start to believe its not fiction or fantasy.

An idea and advice for special needs moms

If you read my blog often, you probably know that my daughter who is 5 has chronic PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder.)  The chronic part means that she’ll probably always have anxieties related to certain situations.

One of the most disconcerting parts of PTSD is the anniversary effect.  For foster parents – this means out of the blue, life goes flipping crazy!  It took us about a week to realize that all of Alyssa’s major changes in life had happened right around Halloween.   She had been sketchy and nervous for about a week before a caseworker visit so we mentioned to the cw that she had separation anxiety and that she needed to tread softly.  Historically, caseworker visits had not gone well with the children.  The kids would get so scared, they’d freeze like a deer in headlights and wet their pants where they stood.  It took days of hugging and rocking and reassuring before things went back to normal. Alyssa has a defense mechanism of telling people what they want to hear when she gets scared.  She wants them to go away – and telling them what they’re asking gets them to go.

So, the caseworker came and it went like normal for those visits.  My sister was in the hospital, so I was heading out the door and Shaun was going to put the kids in bed.  Alyssa did not sleep that night or the next three.  She regressed all the way back to infant stage and blocked out the entire world.  She would not leave my side, even to go to the bathroom and when I turned my back, she grabbed my razor and tried to cut herself.  She would only play with some baby toys I kept for my nephew when he visited.  This was not normal anxiety – this was scary.  (Later we realized this had happened with her last foster parent as well before she moved in with us – on exactly the same date.  She had pulled large patches of hair out and had sores all over her head when she came to us.)

We called everywhere we could think of but on a weekend with a 4 year old child, there aren’t too many resources available.  There’s a crazy long waiting list for any children’s hospital equipped to deal with mental health issues.  We were told just to provide 24/7 supervision and to do what we could.

I did what I do – I got online and signed into a foster parent support group I was a member of.  One of the ladies who I love totally to death suggested a blanket that was satiny on one side and fleece on the other.  She said it was what calmed her children when nothing else would.

Children are incredibly tactile.  They will sit there and rub something in between their fingers for hours.  They love sand, water, hair, everything they can get their little fingers and cheeks on.

I gave Shaun a kiss, and headed out to the mall.  I got this blanket, a white noise machine that played jungle animals across the ceiling along with a lullaby, some pacifiers, and some aromatherapy stuff.

It’s easy to find stuff to sooth babies.  It’s not so easy to find a blanket that is fleece on one side and satiny on the other.  I got it home, sprayed it with the aromatherapy stuff (chamomile and vanilla,) wrapped her up in it and sat in the rocking chair.

Thank God, the internet, and foster parent support group – she got two hours of sleep.  That blanket went with us EVERYWHERE for weeks.  She rubbed it, she sucked on it, she wrapped baby dolls in it, she wore it like a cape.  It still holds special honor in her bed by laying next to a fleece covered body pillow.

So, etsy family, I need you guys to make that more available!  Moms who need something to help with your child – try one of those blankets.  My friend said her children with PDD-NOS, autism, separation anxiety, drug addictions, and developmental delays all loved it.  It’s helped Alyssa so much that I’m going to be in the market for one for each boy come Christmas time.

The only thing that could make it better was if it were lightly weighted.  Weighted blankets help people with autism spectrum and anxiety disorders sleep better.  (Really, read the article linked.)  It’s like an all night hug.  I sleep better with tons of blankets – I have OCD which is an anxiety disorder – and it’s easier for me to sleep if I feel secure.  Speaking of that… etsy folks – anyone want to make a grown up blankie? 

New boundaries, therapy edition

The kids appt went well enough – everything is about the same.  The psychiatrist let us know that today was her last day and they should have a replacement by the time the next appt comes around.  It’s too bad, too.  I like this doctor (all three times we’ve seen her) but I understand the position she’s taking is much better for her.  Hopefully our next psych will work out as well.

The center we go to does monthly health screenings at the same time as the psychiatry screening and it’s done by a nurse.  She’s always a little aloof and distant but today it was just weird.  It’s hard when they fit both kids in at once because I can’t be with them when they do the health screening – I’m with the other one with the doctor.  They have this form they fill out every month and it’s a little intense for elementary school kids.  Stuff like “do you have discharge from your nipples?”

So the first thing that happens when I go in to check on Alyssa – the nurse comes out in the hallway and says “Alyssa says that a male cousin tackles her a lot and he does it because he loves her.”  Ok, they have to ask about this – I’ve actually counseled a number of children who were abused by a relative.

I asked her “did she say anything else about it?”

“No, she thought it was fun.”

I’m trying not to laugh at this point.  The nurse HAS to ask me about it.  Apparently, she didn’t ask Alyssa anything else after she said this, otherwise she would have known.  Alyssa has only one male cousin… and he’s two years old.  He LOVES Alyssa.  Alyssa was one of the first names he learned – right after Mama, Da, and Bob.  He calls me “Lyssa’s Mommy.”  Every time he sees her he squeals A-LYYYYSSSSA! and runs at her full speed.  If he sees me first, he goes “where’s Lyssa? An Cinny – where’s LYSSA?”

I filled the nurse in and she didn’t even smile or act like that fact relaxed her.  The rest of the visit was TENSE to say the least.  Like “did you know that LJ has been having pain when he pees?”  LJ was at the time giving her the silent treatment and staring at his shoes, only answering with a twitch of his chin.  “Alyssa says you gave her a laxative.”

Now – first of all, Alyssa does not know what a laxative is.  Second, she can’t tell last year from yesterday.  This is developmentally normal – and yes, if she’s constipated, I sometimes give her a dose of children’s medicine.  I’m allowed – they sell it, doctors recommend it, and I’m her mother.  She has a pediatrician she sees if it’s too often or if it’s abnormally colored.  Guess what, I don’t have to document it anymore and I really don’t remember if it was two months ago that she was last constipated or a week ago.

During this time, E is in with the psychiatrist, waiting on LJ to get done with the nurse.  He’s not allowed to talk today because he’s been willingly defiant.  So I hear the doctor in there asking him questions.  What part did you not get about me telling YOU that he’s in trouble and his punishment is to not be able to talk – which is his absolute favorite thing to do.  He’s sitting still and being quiet – just ignore him!  The kids are pushing boundaries BECAUSE of the adoption – they are testing me out as a forever mom.  I do NOT need people who should know better to undermine me.

Ethan does not (and did not) want to talk about Mom beating him up – which is what it felt like she was trying to get him to say while I was out of the room.  In my experience, that’s why caseworkers and therapists want to talk to children alone.  He wanted to talk about spider guts and how he stepped in an anthill outside when he was playing.  Those were the first words out of his mouth all at once. He didn’t even want to talk about his most recent reason to be pissed off – Alyssa gets to go to school and he doesn’t – or how he set a fire in the sunroom or how he’s been throwing violent tantrums.  I mean – he’s FOUR.  He’s supposed to be thinking and talking about spider guts.  You aren’t going to get him to talk about anything else by the time I get back.

I thought we’d stop playing these “are you abused at home” games once the kids were adopted – but apparently no.  At least now we don’t have three people a month coming into our house to ask them, but still their mental health workers get to quiz them every time they see them.  How long do I have to be their mom before people stop second guessing my judgment?

I know it’s just my perception because I still get asked when I go to the ER if my husband beats me.  I’m like “it’s a migraine… he didn’t cause THAT.”  It’s just something they have to legally ask so that they don’t come down on the wrong side of the media.  We all have seen the headlines and even judged people without the facts.  We have to believe that there are signs that point towards tragedy, and people are so scared of missing the signs that they lead this very scripted life.

What happens is that the kids end up thinking that they’re asking because I’m doing something wrong or that they need to be worried about.  My job is to give them safety and boundaries – that’s what they need right now.  They need to know that not only am I their protector, but I’m also the law-maker.  When I’m questioned in front of the children about such and such an event, they start thinking that maybe I’m not right.  Their experience has told them that adults aren’t right all the time and sometimes adults hurt little people.

Foster families are built on structure.  Everything is planned, everything goes on the schedule, there are rules for everything.  Everything is documented, everything is scrutinized.  Now that the kids are adopted, I’ve been loosening up the rules little by little.  Things like LJ can ride down the street on his bicycle instead of staying in the driveway.  The kids can spend the night at Grandmommy’s.  We can watch PG-13 movies when Shaun and I agree they’re safe (we don’t worry about curse words – we just don’t allow sex or violence on TV.)  I can walk out in the living room with only my nightgown and a pair of undies on – I don’t have to be robed from head to toe.  We can make stupid jokes when before we’d get disapproving stares from the caseworkers if the kids told one. We’re attempting this idea that we’re a “normal family” now.

The kids know this and they also know the “back-up plan” is gone now that they have forever family.  They’re testing the waters, seeing when how far they can go before they hit a wall.

Ethan hit that wall around noon yesterday.  He’s been skirting it for a week or two.  This morning, he had hit it by 7 am so I told him that I didn’t want to hear another word out of him for the rest of the day.  Then, I have to justify it to the center because if I don’t, I’m afraid they’ll make “that call.”

When we left, Alyssa immediately started in on me with the superiority BS and the defiance.  Before we even got out of the parking lot, I had to have a come to Jesus meeting with her.  Developmentally, this is on target, but damn.  If there was anywhere I should have been backed up on my choice of discipline, it should have been at the center.   Aren’t they there to make life easier on everyone?

So I’m not touchy feely baby-talk kind of mom.  Whatever.  That’s ok.  I tell em how it is and how it’s going to be.  There’s no hinting or “mommy would really like it if…”  These kids are too street savvy to fall for that pleasing adults bull.  It’s easier on everyone if we’re straight up about what’s the rule and what we can negotiate on.

One of the rules is that they don’t get to ask why I said something.  I don’t have to justify myself to a child.  I’m mom – that’s why. I know more than they do and I’m smarter than they are and think about more than they think about.  My decisions are based on reason and logic, but I’m not writing a thesis paper.  I don’t have to defend my choices and my choices are not theories and cannot be treated as such.  “Mine is not to reason why…”  They’re total noobs at this whole life thing.  They don’t get promoted until later on in life.

They better listen too because I control the video game system.  So, they’re adopted.  It’s not an excuse to get what they want.  Whatever -  “adopted” doesn’t mean I have to make up for something that happened to them.  I’m not going to let them use that term for pity or to be spoiled, just like I won’t let it be used against them by the school system.

I guess now I just have to set up the boundaries with the service personnel in our lives.  They didn’t get to go to court with us and they’re still in the habit of treating me like I have to answer to them.  I need to get it straight in my own brain that I don’t have to answer to them either.

Racial adoption?

I wrote this post a few days ago, but didn’t publish it because I was still a bit worked up about the article.  Now, instead of angry about it, I’ve settled down to a “be happy in the skin you’re in” kind of mood.

I think this race issue has been beaten into the ground.  We have a shared human race experience and so what if our skin tones don’t match up?  Generation Y doesn’t get why people get so worked up about skin color or nationality, largely in part because of the internet.  Hopefully the next generation will settle into being comfortable and happy with who they are.  If not, we’ll all just have to keep fucking until the whole world is brown.

So, the post I wrote with some parts deleted due to emotional idiocy.

From this article:

“In many cases, it [the pressure to be a mother] begins to set up feelings of unworthiness, poor self-esteem and the feeling that ‘I’m not fully a woman,’ ” Oliver says.

That pressure can cause some African-American women to rush into a marriage with a man they should not partner with, says Kenyatta Morrisey, a 34-year-old mother of three adopted children in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Really?  White women too.  Also, biracial and multiracial women.  Um, so do Native American women and basically women who live in… like, planet Earth.  Ever read the Bible?  Women who weren’t proven “breeders” could be divorced (and worse) without repercussion.

Women who have vaginas are pressured to have babies.

And we read further:

Yet there are some single African-American women who are not emotionally ready to adopt an African-American child who is too dark, some adoption agency officials say.

Fair-skinned or biracial children stand a better chance of being adopted by single black women than darker-skinned children, some adoption officials say.

“They’ll say, ‘I want a baby to look like a Snickers bar, not dark chocolate,’ ” Caldwell, founder of Lifetime Adoption, says about some prospective parents.

“I had a family who turned a baby down because it was too dark,” she says. “They said the baby wouldn’t look good in family photographs.”

So according to CNN not even black people want black babies anymore but there are associations against white people (or people who look white) adopting black/white transracially.  Apparently everyone these days wants their kid looking kinda Starbucks-latte-add-a-shot colored. How’s that for inappropriate skintone comparisons?

You know what?  My kids weren’t adopted by the foster parent they’d been with for two years because they were white.  They weren’t removed because their social worker was looking to reunite them with their race (or people who looked like their race.)  They were removed because the only woman they ever knew as mom was black and didn’t want to adopt white kids.  This is in their paperwork – seriously.  This is on paper.  They were removed when my daughter learned her Crayola colors and said “Mom, why are you brown and I’m pink?”

When we did our homestudy, you should have seen the caseworker give me the stink-eye when the race question came up.  I had marked that we wanted a black or bi-racial sibling group because not one baby born to my siblings has turned out white, there’s plenty of media on these dark-skinned kids getting split up, and we believed it would make the transition easier overall. I thought those were good reasons, right?  We even met a whole lot of kids who were legally free for adoption – who still haven’t been adopted – where we turned in our homestudy to ask for consideration and were turned down.

Instead, we were asked to “consider” legal-risk foster-to-adopt of two school age Caucasian girls and we did.  That didn’t work out so hot and we took placement of A&E, then found L (one of their bio siblings) in a group home.  After nearly three years and more court than I’ve ever wanted to be in and more heartache than I ever wanted to go through we’ve finally adopted.

<deleted a whole bunch of ranting no one really wants to read>

Seriously, the media has to stop playing the race issue.  More and more our cultural heritage comes from our socio-economic status.  White people live in the projects and black people live in the trailer parks* these days.  Everyone is having a tough time.  Don’t we have actual news to report on?

* To make the housing reference really clear:  it’s said that white people live in trailer parks because they don’t like sharing walls with other people and black people live in apartments because they’d rather deal with people than tornadoes.  I think it has to do more with urban vs. rural living, but hey, that’s the story I get.

5 things you need before fostering

Now that we’ve adopted from the foster system, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about how things went.  I feel almost like I’m doing a post-mortem on a big project – sort of an analytical autopsy.  There are things I wish we had done differently and things we did right.  There are pieces of advice that were given to us that I treasured and held onto during the two years of chaos.  There are things I learned the hard way and things I’m still learning in a not so easy manner.

Starting with the most important:

1.  Be comfortable with your stance on God.

I’m not a religious person but I am a very spiritual person.  I’ve read the Bible in 7 different translations, written and published articles on faith and spirituality, and on the whole spent a lot of time learning about God.  Over the ‘infertile years’ I learned how to be angry at God and I learned that a lot of the psalms are about praising God when you’re so mad at Him you can spit.

When you foster children – your faith in not only humanity but in God gets shaken.  Badly.  I knew intellectually that these bad things happened.  When a child in my house went through the aftershocks of the trauma, it got personal.  There were nights I sat up all night reliving what I had been told.

Fostering WILL shake your faith.  It will.  If you don’t know what you believe before you get shaken, you’re gonna have a rough time.

2.  Come to terms with why you are fostering.

For us, it was infertility and the incredible need to have children.  I don’t think I’ve come to terms with it yet but learning to love this kids is harder than I imagined.  I thought it would be instant – like the attachment to God’s little angels would be overwhelming.  It’s not like that.  Even after two years I’m still learning to love them for WHO they are.  It made me wonder about my reasons for fostering – was I in it to give kids love that they’ve never had before or am I in this because of the pain I felt at not being able to reproduce?

I’m having to grieve that I don’t know what my children looked like as babies.  I don’t know what their first word was.  I don’t know what colors they were attracted to or what baby food they liked.  These children are such a big part of me, but they still aren’t from me.  You have to grieve that loss.  You have to grieve whatever happened in your life that makes you able to be a good foster parent.

3.  Love is not enough.

If you think an emotion will get you through this – it won’t.  It will always be there in some form but you’re gonna need logic, training, support, sheer cunning and a whole lot of willpower.  At times you will have to be coldly logical in order to reach these kids who don’t understand natural consequences or for the kids who are acting out just to provoke you into an emotional act.

There are times you have to be so creative it will shock you and everyone around you.  There are times I felt like one of those psychiatrists on TV – getting into the kids head to figure out what made them tick.  My daughter would pee her pants just so she could change clothes and the only thing that stopped her from doing it was to pack the ugliest pair of sweatpants I could find in her daycare bag.  She didn’t mind smelling like pee but she cares about having on ugly pants.

And fair warning – there will be times when you give a serious thought to sending them back into the system.  They will do things that you never even thought about and have no idea how to respond to.  There are moments you will no longer be a sane, rational adult.  There are times – lots of them – where you have to send yourself to time out just so you can cool down enough to think.  There are situations that if you hadn’t discussed them in IMPACT class, you would be totally lost on.  There are times you call the caseworker and ask “what do I do?  This is crazy and I have no idea what to do.”

4.  Learn to accept loss as a human condition.

Every relationship ends.  Every relationship that doesn’t end in death, ends in break-up.  Foster kids know this VERY well.  You need to learn this too as most people who have lived a stable life and live the stable life these children need do not know this yet.

You have to learn this, be willing to grieve and cry with the kids, and then live life in spite of it.  You can’t let loss cripple you and you can’t let the FEAR of loss affect your relationship with the kids.

If you were one of the infertiles who moved on to adoption, you are very well acquainted with the fear of loss.  I can’t tell you how many times I sat in the bathroom floor crying my eyes out because I was so afraid I was going to lose these kids too.  I hear people say all the time “I couldn’t foster children because it would hurt me too badly if they left.”  You know what?  It does hurt.  It hurts a lot.  Don’t let the fear of that pain stop you.  Humans are capable of living through a lot of torment but if you focus on making every moment you have with these kids happy and productive, you will make a difference in their lives.

5.  You’re going to have to fight for everything for the kids.

Whether it’s paperwork, a teacher being fair to the kids, services the kids need… you’re gonna be up for a fight.  Don’t fight fair – your opponents won’t.  You’re going to deal with lost paperwork, destroyed files, lazy beurocrats, and even sheer incompetence.

Don’t be afraid to work your way through the system and then if it doesn’t work, go outside it.  I found that emailing the governor was the most productive thing I ever did in getting the kids moved on the road to adoption.  In the school system, I called the county’s head of special education.  I’ve called hospital administrators looking for medical files.  I’ve scoured the internet, emailed hundreds of people, and pushed until I got what I wanted.  My kids are going to know their history, by God!

Don’t forget during all of this to document everything.  Buy a cheap copy machine and copy everything for a file for the kids to have when they reach maturity.  The system is supposed to have this for them when they reach 18, but we’ve already talked about lost files.  Also, documenting everything will cover your own ass when it comes to people making allegations against you.  Don’t just be proactive, be over-reactive.

For a different kind of fight – teachers in the schools will discriminate against your child because they are in the system.  I don’t know who started spreading the idea that foster kids equal bad kids, but it’s out there.  Teachers are not above gossip, either.  I’m not saying don’t tell the teacher anything, but expect to get up in some faces.  If you’re in the office once a week talking to the principal and counselor, the teachers will be much less likely to act out against your kids.

The rest of parenting foster kids really is just providing a stable and loving home.  You’ll be pushed but keep moving and keep thinking and keep working.  If you like an easy life, then don’t even bother signing up for classes.  If you’re looking for a challenge and regular life bores you, then there are plenty of kids out there waiting for you.

Cousins

The past few days have been both great and un-nerving.  I have entered the ranks of moms in my family – officially.  Yesterday was the adoption party and quite a bit of people turned out both from my family and Shaun’s family.  It got difficult explaining familial relations at several points – like my aunt isn’t far from my age and her kids are the ages of my kids.  So, technically they are second cousins (right?)  I told my aunt that normally we just go along with if it’s a grown person you address them as aunt or uncle and kids are cousins.

In the foster system, this is kind of how it goes inside the agency.  The only people who can watch the foster kids overnight are other foster parents and all the kids who have been in the system a while know each other.  It’s not a biological bond, but they are cousins in the patchwork family of foster homes.  The kids who don’t live here full-time normally either call me “Miss Cyndi” or “Aunt Cyndi.”

I don’t think we’ll ever transition from the “we spend a lot of time with you so you’re family” train of thought and into the “we’re biologically related so you’re my family” train.  Most people I know, they dread family gatherings because their blood ties connect them to people they neither like nor respect.   So, what is a family?

For me, my dad was very influential in defining our family.  It was Mom, Dad, and the three kids.  Dad called us “the wolf pack.”  We were lectured over the dinner table many times about how when times get hard, your family is your fail-safe.  He didn’t mean extended family though – he meant the five of us.  He taught us that we couldn’t depend on the rest of the folks to help us out.  My question was always why we called them family then if they had no stakes in keeping alive, healthy, and emotionally stable.  A family, to me, was always seen as a support structure and the rest of the “relations” were just ornamental. But then again, isn’t it cruel to disassociate yourself from your blood relations if there’s no bad blood at all?  Where there’s only mutual indifference?

So many thoughts keep rolling around in my brain about this.  Social contracts.  The need to define relationships.  Familial hierarchies.  Family trees and histories.  Knowing your roots.  Genetic memory.  Tribalism.  Structured society.

All I know is that my kids are probably going to fail their family tree assignment when they get into school because their mom would rather the term family be loosely defined with plenty of room to add more people.